voice + clay + daniel johnston

i got more ill today but i love talking about the media
i consume and the crafts i've made!!

i have a few things to say today. it's not been a busy day by all means as i woke up early today, so its only really 10:55. i woke up to go to uni but because i feel sicker than yesterday i choe to stay home. its not really a lecture where we do much anyway, i think its just dissertation presentations this week and ive already done mine. its on the woman warrior by maxine hong kingston. my main interest, or the question i hope to answer is "what would a native chinese or a chinese american reader pick up on that i have not yet?" / "how does our cultural capital differ?". i mainly want to know what the symbolism in the folktales mean. i think i'm going to start waking up earlier. i've been wanting to for a long time now, like a year and a half, but i find that when certain people are in your life you change your routine to experience them as fully as possible, really open up every opportunity for spontenaity, then as soon as they leave it all goes back to scheduled programming you know? i think it was worth staying up each night then sleeping in to 9am to experience what i did. well, i don't think, i know because i'd do it all again. but also i know it's not healthy to change drastically for people like that. work on yourself? yes, but really throw everything you established out the window? no.

i think this is a good chance to conduct my own symposium now that i've introduced one hinting theory on love. i believe two things: love, like everything, starts off hard and gets easier, and that you are never good enough for anyone. i'll explain. firstly, i think everything has a really hard bit at the beguinning that accounts for roughly 10% of the upcoming experience once you notice it, which means if you are fully present and welcoming to the experience it's clear cut, but if you aren't it's longer and fuzzier but the 10% starts once you realise and start actively choosing to do things, accepting or not of the experience. but assuming the first cleanly cut instance, the 10% is proportional to the following 90% easy bit, so if it's long you know you are doing it right. the 10% is hard because it challenges you; you'll be learning the fundementals of what works, what doesnt, get to know the basic but important information, learning how to practice what youve learn and the like. in love it's being vulnerable, reciprocating, learning to love someone how they understand, getting to know them, really letting them know you and more. it's really (as i refer to what my friends taught me about friendship in college) learning how to shut the fuck up and not be yourself for a bit. well, being authentic without those harmful parts of you snaking out. like communicating to them that you have those tendencies but that you are working on it and if they are good friends like mine theyll welcome that and enourage you that your best is enough.

this makes the 90% both easier and harder as you have to maintain what you've established and also keep learning about them. unfortunately, people (not naming names) want to rush the 10% or simply not do it at all and thats how love fails. sometimes i thinks it's because they believe they are not good enough for you, which is my second point. YOU ARE NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANYONE!!! THAT IS THE POINT OF LOVE!! you are supposed to think you arent good enough for someone else but loving them is saying i'm working on myself for me but also for you and them also doing the same. don't ruin things because your brain is lying to you please, because you may be thinking about yourself too much. i decide who is good enough for me, even if it's a bad decision to pick you it's my decision!! but also if you think nobody cares about you, that thought has an opposite thought that your lover or friend is mean enough to not care about you, which is rarely ever true. i know it's a safety mechanism learnt from childhood but it's mean to assume the worst from the people that you love and love you. LET LOVE BE MESSY!! that reminds me of this documentary i watched about daniel johnston after watching outsider music. i must admit it made me cry to watch a conversation like that, though simulated, of talking to your younger self, knowing what you know now. lana del reys cover of some things last a long time made me sob like a baby. i looked more into him and laurie and i think everything is perfect about the story. sometimes your muse is just supposed to be observed and experienced,

not lived with and unpicked and worn down or their magic would go. i think he is a very creative man who was lucky to have preserved his childlike, emotionally intuitive nature. i think it's something that is natural for all of us but we lose it through no fault of our own. i think thats why his direct and often simple lyrics end up so emotionally complex... because thats all you need. you don't need dramatics, just a piano and the voice. i'm trying to distill that in myself as i lost that through no fault of my own, but it's my fault if i don't try to find it again. i'd like to express myself but it's like a muscle. i think i'm getting better at it. expression with no regrets. i made clay yesterday, shown in picture one. i was just using up my left over clay, it made me happy to find it again after all those deadlines. it always disrupts the creative flow i develop in between those periods. i made some big beads too, not many but enough. and almost comically big. i might buy more clay and make more and i want to make some big cloth pendants that are stuffed or corded or something. i might make it out of this sheet metal i got from a tube of food somethings tho. i am also massively into synths now. like i have been for a long time but i was too scared to try it and really beating myself up about it and not understanding drum beats but it's getting easier now i'm really trying and looking into it. i'm trying to adopt my approch to poetry and apply it to everything as its the only process that has ever given me unbridled freedom. it's the only artform i have where i don't doubt myself alongside maybe filet crochet...

anyway, i'm in love with today, india xox